Review: The Presence

Shortly after the death of his wife Joan in 2005, poet Dannie Abse began keeping a diary, making his first entry on his 82nd birthday. The resulting collection of tentative memoir and meditation proves an unexpected victory over Abse's natural urge to retreat into inertia and wordlessness. "Just thinking about Joan turns me over," he says, "including writing this." Abse finds himself terrified of driving (he was in the car accident that killed his wife) and even of leaving his local Hampstead. But amid his sparse, tender encapsulations of grief - "Joan is nowhere and no white freesias will ever again grace this house in Golders Green" - he manages to voyage into his literary past, finding increasing consolation.

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